Are Trout Line Shy?

I may be a heretic for this statement, but I may be the first guy on record to say that trout, and fish in general, aren’t line shy. My theory is this: when fish are actively feeding, if you make a proper presentation, they will eat. It’s as simple as that. I think fishermen often times like to over think the situation, and they wind up spending less time fishing and more time rigging or changing lures. A topic that often falls under the over thinking category is line shyness. I’m sure somebody just spit out their coffee on their keyboard reading this while they fervently shake their head in disagreement, but I will stick by that statement. I’m sure that there is somebody reading this that is thinking, “If you ain’t using fluorocarbon, you ain’t fishing.”

Here’s my first example of the “wary” trout not being as intelligent as we make them out to be. When I was a kid, I made my living drifting nightcrawlers on the Truckee River. I started out fishing nothing heavier than 4Lb test monofilament. At some point, I started hooking into a few bigger fish, and it became necessary to upsize my tackle. So, I went up to 6Lb test mono on a 2500 size spinning reel. This combo was extremely potent for bagging just about anything that would eat a nightcrawler. At some point, I made the quantum leap that all evolving anglers eventually make, and I decided that I needed to catch the biggest fish that the river offered. Thus, I started throwing expensive minnow plugs, and I was a poor 13 year old kid that couldn’t afford to lose many of them. At about the same time as my personal fishing evolution, braided line was just really coming onto the scene in a big way. One of my best mentors in the fishing game was actually a Wal Mart sporting goods employee that had landed his fair share of big browns from the Truckee. His advice to me shocked me, and I followed it with quite a bit of trepidation. What he told me seemed completely contrary to good angling sense at the time. “Just tie that expensive Rapala straight to that super strong braided line,” he said. I couldn’t believe that any trout could be duped with line that wasn’t even transparent.

The first big brown I caught on the Truckee on straight Fireline in the “smoke” finish really surprised me. No mono leader, just a duo lock snap tied right to the mainline had duped the most savvy of trout; a wild river born brown on a heavily fished urban river.

I repeated that feat on the Truckee and many other rivers many times over the next few years. The next line shyness revelation would come out at Pyramid Lake.

For the record, I’ve heard fly guys nymphing out at Pyramid say that the fish can see anything heavier than 8lb fluorocarbon. If you hang around with enough of these “veterans” you are sure to buy into the hype. So, I often times used gear that was too light for the fish I was targeting, and although I never had a cutthroat take off on a searing run and break me off, I would often times break fish off when grabbing the leader and trying to land them.

I am a perpetual boundary tester these days, and of course I needed to test the boundaries of how heavy a rope I could tie to my flies and still get bit. Nowadays, when I jig or strip streamers out at Pyramid, I use whatever heavy mono I have lying around my garage for leaders. Most of the time that equates to 12-15Lb test line making the critical connection. I’ve never needed to go heavier than that, so I have never tried. Frankly, I’m confident I can grab the leader and shake a fish off that weighs less than 5Lbs with that line. If I ever hook into a 30Lb Pilot Peak Cutt, I know that 15Lb Maxima will be up to the task. When I nymph out there with little bugs under a bobber, I usually run 10Lb test Maxima Ultragreen. I would try to go heavier, but that is often times the thickest diameter line that will thread through the eyes of a small fly.

I fish for many different species, and another fish that often gets tagged with the banner of line shyness is the mythical unicorn otherwise known as the steelhead. I usually will be throwing heavier leader material at steelhead than anybody on the river. Unless they have been pounded to death for two months straight in the terminal hole next to the hatchery, I will always catch my share of fish.

When do I go with lighter line? Pretty much the only time that I can say that going heavier may cost you fish is when the fish have been heavily pressured, or heavier line compromises the action of a lure of the presentation of your bait. In other words, if you are using 12lb test mainline in a river, and it causes your line to drag unnaturally, then you may need to downsize to 8Lb test so that your bait drifts at the same speed as the current. If you are running small minnow plugs, 20Lb test mono may as well be a ski rope attached to the front of your lure because it will totally kill the wiggle.

As you may have noticed, I like to paint with a broad brush, and I don’t mind making generalizations. Of course, you can’t tie fluorescent chartreuse braid straight to your lure and expect to get bit… or can you? Come to think about it, I’ve never tried it. Stay tuned…